issue: Politics

Do We Need a Third Party to Fix Deficits?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Republicans are crying foul over Democrats’ resort to “Mediscare” tactics to win an open House seat in New York. Democrats are chortling because they think the GOP’s heretofore unstoppable austerity offensive may have met its Stalingrad.

All this is diverting to aficionados of partisan thrust-and-parry in Washington. But the rest of the country may be less amused. By adhering to unbending, absolutist positions on Medicare and taxes, could Democrats and Republicans be cracking open the door to a serious third party challenge in 2012?

On Tuesday, Democrat Kathy Hochul won a traditionally Republican House seat in upstate New York in a special election. She relentlessly linked her GOP opponent to Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan for making deep cuts in Medicare while preserving the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Many Democrats now see this as the winning formula for next year’s elections.

Ryan complained yesterday that Democrats are “shamelessly demagoguing and distorting” his plan. It was hard to feel any sympathy for the earnest House Budget Commission chairman, however, since Republicans in 2010 spent millions on ads shamelessly blasting Democratic candidates for backing the proposed Medicare cuts in Obamacare. There’s actual double hypocrisy at work here, since Ryan’s Medicare proposal works through the same health exchanges Republicans find so objectionable in Obama’s plan.

Being called a demagogue by the party of death panels and death taxes is like being called ugly by a crab.

Nonetheless, Democrats need to resist the temptation to pay back their opponents in kind. They need to retain the flexibility to slow down Medicare’s cost growth, which as Bill Clinton said yesterday at the Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit, is the sine qua non of any serious proposal to reduce federal deficits and debt.

Medicare spending is by far the biggest driver of federal spending growth. Together with Social Security, it represents nearly one-third of federal spending. According to the Social Security and Medicare Trustees, the government is slated to transfer over $3.4 trillion in general revenues to Medicare by 2020. This problem needs to be tackled now, even if it complicates Democrats’ ability to run on “Medagoguery” in 2012.

Meanwhile, “progressives” aren’t helping by running a ridiculously over-the-top ad showing a Ryan look-alike pitching a wheelchair-bound granny off a cliff. True progressives believe in solving the nation’s core dilemmas, not fetishizing the status quo. Cutting the nation’s debts down to manageable size will require both higher revenues and lower rates of entitlement spending growth.

If Democrats and Republicans can’t produce a fix along these lines, they practically invite the 2012 version of Ross Perot into the race.

Wingnut Watch: Debt-Ceiling Deniers, Hostage-Takers and the 2012 Field

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s happened so quickly that its significance may have been obscured, but one of the biggest recent developments in Wingnut World has been the rapid devolution of conservative opinion on the pending debt limit crisis–from demands for hard-line negotiations to outright rejection of negotiations at all, often supplemented by claims that the government doesn’t need new debt authority anyway.

This last phenomenon, which Jonathan Chait and others have been calling “debt-ceiling denialism,” is spreading like kudzu since it was first notably articulated by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) in a January column in the Wall Street Journal. There are different forms of the argument, but the common threads are the claim that the federal government can prioritize the use of revenues in a way that avoids debt default, and the complaint that the whole issue has been manufactured by Democrats to avoid big spending cuts. Toomey attracted 100 House members and 22 Senators to his “Full Faith and Credit Act” legislation that would supposedly avoid a default by forcing debt payments to the top of the spending priority list.

Short of explicit denial that a real breaching of the debt limit would be a bad thing, other conservatives (including presidential candidates Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain) take the parallel position of opposing any increase in the debt limit on grounds that spending (without, of course, any tax increases) should be cut enough to make the increase unnecessary.

The usual reaction in Washington to this sort of talk is to dismiss it as tactical positioning for the “deal” that will ultimately be cut—as “hostage-taking” aimed at maximizing the “ransom.” Perhaps that’s exactly what it was initially. But at some point, arguments that the hostage’s life is worth nothing, or worse yet, that the ransom limit increases are perpetually unpopular among the overwhelming percentage of Americans who have no real idea of the merits of either side of the can be earned precisely by killing the hostage, undermine the very idea of a deal, particularly when refusing to negotiate with Democrats is a posture that conservatives value as an end in itself anyway. Indeed, the trend in conservative rhetoric on this subject is to accuse Democrats of hostage-taking by their adamant refusal to accept vast spending reductions. It’s a dangerous gambit, made even more tempting to Republicans by the fact that debt dispute.

The key question is the extent to which the GOP’s business elites forcefully push back and demand a more reasonable attitude before things get out of hand. That’s particularly urgent since debt-limit deniers and hard-liners alike are getting into the habit of arguing that financial markets care more about spending reductions than any hypothetical default on the debt. Moreover, debt-limit ultras are also playing with fire by systematically eliminating any incentive for the Obama administration or congressional Democrats to make concessions to a credible negotiating partner. Why offer a ransom when the hostage-takers no longer seem to care what you offer? Better to just send in the SWAT team and take your chances.

Meanwhile, the last week offered more news in the shaping of the 2012 Republican presidential nomination field: Mitch Daniels disappointed his Beltway cheerleading squad by deciding against a run; Newt Gingrich imploded his long-shot campaign with a series of disastrous remarks and revelations; and Tim Pawlenty and Herman Cain formally announced candidacies.

Assessments of the impact of Daniels’ non-candidacy vary according to perspective. Some think it will lead Establishment Republicans to make a last-ditch effort to find another savior such as Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) or even Jeb Bush. And if that fails, to resign themselves to the existing field and get behind Romney, Pawlenty, or Huntsman (though the last option remains implausible because his path to the nomination remains extremely difficult). Others combine the Daniels and Huckabee withdrawals and suggest the weak field will produce a big opening for a southern Tea Party conservative with deep pockets like Rick Perry. Both Establishment types and fans of a late entry are beginning to burrow away to undermine the credibility of the Iowa Caucuses as the essential starting-point for the real campaign (for the latter camp, it’s in part because competing in Iowa requires competing in the state party Straw Poll that is held this August).

Though the Gingrich implosion has interested the conservative commentariat less than Daniels’ decision–for the good reason that very few observers considered the Newster viable in the first place–its long-term significance should not be underestimated: it proved once again that ideological purity is the preeminent demand of conservatives for GOP presidential candidates. If nothing else, the incident will make it very difficult for other candidates to distance themselves from Paul Ryan’s politically perilous Medicare proposals. But it should also serve as a dashboard idiot light to Mitt Romney warning him that his hopes of being forgiven for his health care heresy may not be terribly realistic.

Donald Trump: Presidential Politics and Business As Usual

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

This week Donald Trump officially announced that he would not run for President in 2012 saying, “business is my greatest passion” and that he was not ready to leave the private sector. A look at Trump’s contributions to political campaigns suggests that he is quite prepared to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to setting priorities: business before politics.

According to The Washington Post, Trump has made a total of $1.3 million of political contributions to date. These donations have been fairly evenly split between the two parties, with 54% going to Democrats. Indeed, Trump’s loudmouthed criticism of Democratic policies in recent days did not stop him from donating to prominent Democrats closely associated with President Obama over several years, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the President’s former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel.

In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump justified donating to Democrats on the grounds that it was good business to do so. Trump was keen to point out that many of his donations have been in Democrat-controlled New York, the place where he does business. “Why should I contribute to a Republican for my whole life when…the most they can get is one percent of the vote?” Trump asked. In New York and other states where Trump has business interests, Democrats are the incumbents and so are the logical beneficiaries of Trump’s largesse. As Trump told Hannity he’s “not stupid”; why would he donate to candidates who can’t win and will not hold power or affect his interests?

While Trump may be an eccentric politician, he is–at least in this respect–a very typical businessman. Corporate political giving is overwhelmingly directed at incumbents and tends to significantly favor the political party in power. In 2008 PACs and individuals in the energy industry gave 82% of their contributions to incumbents, Wall Street gave 74%, and the pharmaceutical industry gave 89% regardless of political party, according to Americans for Campaign Reform.

It is hardly surprising that Trump and others in business should direct campaign contributions towards politicians likely to wield power. But the idea that Trump’s calculating self-interest remains in the headlines is somewhat of a shock, suggesting that much of the small dollar donations given by individuals is still representative of deeply-held personal political convictions.

As Trump leaves the Republican presidential field, perhaps he can bring a bit of straight talking to the debate on campaign finance reform. The issue has many complexities, but one key is quite simple after all: the bulk of big-dollar campaign donations aren’t made in support of deeply held ideological beliefs. They’re made as a business investment to the candidate most likely to win, regardless of the party they’re in.

The Donald doesn’t pretend otherwise and nor should we. You don’t need a gold toupee stand to see this.

Will Marshall in Politico on the Gang of Six

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Head on over to Politico’s site today to see Will Marshall’s take on the implosion of the Gang of Six, a group of Senators trying to forge a bipartisan compromise on the budget. Here’s an excerpt, but click here to read the whole piece:

Sen. Tom Coburn’s defection from the Gang of Six obviously sets back prospects for restoring fiscal sanity in Washington. Nonetheless, the now diminished Gang remains the only plausible vehicle for advancing the political breakthrough achieved by the president’s Fiscal Commission.

To the surprise of many jaded Washington observers, the commission struck a fiscal “grand bargain” that marries tax and entitlement reform. Defying the Norquist Doctrine, Coburn and two other GOP senators agreed to close tax expenditures and use the savings not only to lower individual and corporate tax rates, but also to cut the federal deficit. This prompted a reciprocal act of political courage by several Democrats led by Sen. Dick Durbin, who embraced Social Security reforms unpopular with liberals.

Continue reading the whole piece at Politico.

Wingnut Watch: Conservatives Savage Romney’s Health Care, Huckabee Sits It Out

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Presidential politics was again the focus of Wingnut World last week, as conservative opinion-leaders took the opportunity to savage Mitt Romney for his adamant defense of the Massachusetts health reform plan, while mulling over the decision of controversial fellow-traveler Mike Huckabee to stay on the sidelines in 2012.

Romney took the calculated risk of delivering a self-hyped “major speech” on health reform at the University of Michigan, apparently in hopes that a definitive statement on the subject would flush out and eventually diminish conservative anger at him on the subject before Republicans actually begin voting next year. It certainly flushed out negative opinions on the Right. Even before the speech was delivered, Romney took a pounding from the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, which rightly predicted he would refuse to back down on the wisdom of backing a state reform plan that included an individual insurance purchasing mandate and other features associated with “ObamaCare.” The title of the op-ed says it all: “Obama’s Running Mate.”

The speech itself was a hodge-podge of arguments and rationalizations. Romney alternated between what progressive health wonk Jonathan Cohn called an “inspiring” defense of his reasoning in signing the Massachusetts law, and less-than-compelling claims that the law had no implications for national health policy. The conservative commentariat has long since rejected as inadequate his “federalism defense” that “RomneyCare” was a system designed for Massachusetts only, which is unsurprising since the individual mandate is the specific target of a host of state lawsuits aimed at overturning ObamaCare. Moreover, the proto-candidate’s effort to change the subject to what he would propose as president after a theoretical repeal of national health reform legislation drew virtually no attention, probably because he simply endorsed every conventional conservative gimmick of recent years—a tax credit for the purchase of individual insurance policies, preemption of state regulation of private health insurance via interstate sales, and medical malpractice reform.

Only time will tell if Team Romney is right that hostility to RomneyCare will burn itself out, much as John McCain’s many past heresies against conservative orthodoxy were ultimately forgiven in 2008, leaving Republican elites to focus on his superior “electability.” But Romney’s not off to a very good start. Among his tormenters after the speech were the editors of National Review, who gave him a crucial endorsement in 2008. After rejecting Romney’s federalism argument that an individual mandate was acceptable at the state level, his one-time fans at NR made this brutal assessment of the political thinking behind the speech:

We understand that Romney does not feel that he can flip-flop on what he had touted as his signature accomplishment in office. But if there is one thing we would expect a successful businessman to know, it is when to walk away from a failed investment.

This is in synch with the advice Romney has been receiving from Sen. Jim DeMint of SC, another key 2008 supporter who is vastly more influential today.

Later in the week, conservative chattering class attention was diverted to Romney’s 2008 nemesis, Mike Huckabee, who stage-managed an announcement of non-candidacy on his Fox show Saturday after touching off an orgy of confused speculation about his plans by issuing a variety of mixed signals.

His Saturday show was quite a spectacle. It included a derisive panel discussion of Romney’s health care speech, a bizarre interview with right-wing rocker Ted Nugent—who discussed his proposal to unleash the Navy Seals to “secure” U.S. borders with mega-violence—who then took the stage to perform “Cat Scratch Fever” with Huck on bass, followed by a videotaped benediction from Donald Trump. Near the end of the show, Huckabee faced the cameras and detailed all the reasons he should run for president, before divulging that God had persuaded him otherwise via prayer.

For all the hype and the alleged divine intervention, Huck’s decision was precisely what the conventional wisdom had long predicted, mainly because of his palpable reluctance to give up the Fox show and a new-found personal wealth to go trudging through the pot-luck dinner circuit of Iowa once again. At fifty-five, Huckabee is also young enough to consider running in 2016 or even later.

Assessments of the impact on the 2012 race of Huckabee’s non-candidacy have been mixed, but there’s a general consensus that it provides an opening for other outspoken social conservative in Iowa, while limiting the southerners in the field to the not-very-southern Newt Gingrich and African-American Herman Cain. In both respects, this could be very good news for smart-money favorite Tim Pawlenty, who is by all accounts out-organizing his rivals in Iowa and is clearly acceptable to the Christian Right and can now seriously contemplate a breakthrough in southern states beginning with South Carolina.

Speaking of Tim Pawlenty and South Carolina, a fascinating subplot in the presidential contest has been unfolding after Gov. Nikki Haley demanded that all the candidates side with her in attacks on the National Labor Relations Board, which has at least temporarily stopped the relocation of jobs by Boeing from Washington to SC in the wake of disputes with the machinists union. Haley, it should be noted, has trumped the usual conservative bashing of public-sector unions by arguing that private-sector unionism is incompatible with economic growth (she appointed a “management” labor attorney as her state labor department chief with the explicit mission of keeping unions out of the state to the maximum extent possible). Pawlenty won the race to first kiss Haley’s ring on the Boeing issue, though the other candidates are quickly following. This helps reinforce the impression that Pawlenty’s strategy—ironically, much like Mitt Romney’s in 2008—is to supplement his “moderate-governor-of-a-blue-state” background with an effort to do whatever he is told by conservative activists. He hasn’t turned them down yet.

Can Immigration Benefit Dems?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Immigration isn’t a winning issue for either party. Republicans, under the tea party’s spell, are gravitating toward a purely restrictionist stance, which will complicate their party’s efforts to make inroads among Latinos, the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. electorate. President Obama and the Democrats favor “comprehensive reform,” which includes legalizing millions of workers. With joblessness stuck at twice normal levels, and wages stagnant at best for average workers, that’s a hard sell.

Since there’s obviously no way today’s divided Congress will pass a comprehensive bill, people naturally wonder why Obama keeps returning to the theme. No doubt his advisers want to galvanize another big Latino turnout in 2012, with similarly lopsided Democratic margins. But it’s also true that Obama never stops looking for ways to advance his core campaign promises – just ask the bin Ladens.

Latino advocacy groups are pressing Obama to use his executive powers to slow down deportations. That also will be difficult, because stronger enforcement of U.S. immigration laws constitutes the only common ground in this debate. If you are weak on enforcement, you won’t get a hearing on anything else.

In any case, balanced immigration reform will have to await full economic recovery. In the meantime Obama and progressives should focus on a more modest goal: beginning to align U.S. immigration policy with America’s economic needs. This means expanding the number of high skill visas, stapling green cards to the diplomas of foreign students so they can put what they’ve learned to work in the United States, and opening a pathway to citizenship for the children of illegal aliens who get into college.

cross-posted at The Arena at Politico

Wingnut Watch: The Republicans Debate, and Wait for a Serious Contender

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The nuttier elements of Wingnut World were on high-profile display last week in Greenville, SC, as Fox News and the South Carolina Republican Party held the first event billed as a 2012 candidate debate. With the exception of Tim Pawlenty, everyone who showed up has about as much chance of winning the nomination as I do.

One of the under-discussed topics of the endless wind-up to the 2012 race is the extent to which an abundance of fire-breathing minor candidates can distort the tone of the GOP contest, and particularly its televised debates. The Greenville event showed it could get pretty weird, even with a tightly controlled format and with Michele Bachmann and Roy Moore not in the room.

As is almost always the case at Republican gatherings with no stiff entry fee, the live audience was dominated by very loud followers of Ron Paul. The enthusiasm for Paul was not diminished by the presence of a second libertarian, Gary Johnson. Meanwhile, one of those famous Frank Luntz focus groups watched the show and went gaga for Herman Cain, another familiar phenomenon from the early campaign trail. Cain is smooth and keeps things simple, which separates him a bit from other 100 percent red-meat stemwinders who always sound like they want to deliver a 3,000-page book written all in capital letters, with more shouting in the footnotes.

But if Herman Cain won the night, Rick Santorum may have won the week in South Carolina with several events (he’s now been to SC sixteen times already) capped by winning the straw poll at a state party fundraising dinner. He was, of course, the only candidate who showed up. The same day, oddly enough, in the very same city, Jon Huntsman made his first public appearance after stepping down as U.S. Ambassador to China, as the commencement speaker at the University of South Carolina. Aside from some remarks about patriotism that some are interpreting as an elliptical defense of his service in the Obama administration, Huntsman made it through his speech without having to address the kind of right-wing concerns about his commitment to the Cause he’ll soon be facing if he runs for president.

While we are on the presidential topic, Newt Gingrich has let it be known he will announce his candidacy on Wednesday, after several false starts over the last month. Gingrich will try to extend the press surrounding his announcement with a Major Speech at the annual convention of the Georgia Republican Party.

Newt isn’t being taken that seriously as a candidate by most of the punditocracy, but it does respect his money, as reflected in a very interesting piece in today’s Wall Street Journal about the vast and well-financed array of organizations he’s put together since leaving Congress in 1999, often called “Newt, Inc.” Like Mitt Romney, Gingrich is a candidate who harnesses tremendous organizational, fundraising and (conservatives think, at least) intellectual skills to a pattern of flaws that may or may not prove disqualifying.

The other presidential buzz this week involves the man beloved of many Beltway Establishment Republicans who believe he can save them from a presidential field sporting the likes of Cain, Santorum, Gingrich, Romney and the rest of them: Mitch Daniels. Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post nicely captured the thinking of these folk:

A Daniels candidacy probably would be taken as a sign that the games are over for the Republican Party, that it is time to buckle down and organize to beat President Obama.

“He will turn a race that is about less serious politics into a race about more serious policy,” argued Alex Castellanos, a Republican media consultant who is not aligned with any candidate heading into 2012. “Daniels is the adult in the room saying the party is over, it’s time to clean house. That contrast in maturity is how a Republican beats Obama.”

Any time you read this many references to seriousness and maturity, you have to figure the political professionals in the GOP are very worried about their presidential field, and, moreover, willing to accept the risks involved in a “serious” candidate who wants to undertake very unpopular policies in order to nominate someone who seems as presidential as Barack Obama. But the more immediate problem is that the people being implicitly derided as immature, unserious brats happen to be the grassroots conservatives who tend to dominate early-state caucuses and primaries—and to cheer Herman Cain and Rick Santorum when they call for total war against the godless liberals and Beltway elites alike.

 

Egypt’s Errant Diplomacy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Although the fall of Arab dictators is in general a healthy development for America, it could also pose some tricky, short-term challenges to U.S. interests in the Middle East. Egypt’s post-Mubarak diplomacy is an unsettling case in point.

Long our most reliable ally in the region, Egypt has struck a more independent course since a popular uprising forced Hosni Mubarak to relinquish power. To the consternation of Washington and Jerusalem, it brokered the April 27 power-sharing agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas apparently sought the reconciliation with Hamas because he thinks a unified front bolsters the chance for Palestinian statehood. A new interim government will ask the United Nations in September to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. But since Hamas did not renounce terrorism or accept Israel’s right to exist, the accord would seem to foreclose any possibility of jump-starting stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel’s relatively dovish President, Shimon Peres, minced no words in calling the unity pact a “fatal mistake that will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and will sabotage chances of peace and stability in the region.”

Unfortunately, Hamas’s intransigence reflects a tragic Palestinian tendency to indulge in fantasies of redemptive violence and rally behind “strong men” who call for Israel’s destruction and defy the United States. Virtually alone in the region, Palestinians cheered Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War. A recent poll shows that a majority of Palestinians approve of Osama bin Laden, the only place in the region where that is true.

In fact, in stark contrast to the reaction of most Middle East leaders, Hamas deplored America’s killing of Osama bin Laden. “We condemn the assassination of a Muslim and Arab warrior and we pray to God that his soul rests in peace,” declared Ismail Haniya, “prime minister” of the Gaza strip. “We regard this as the continuation of the American oppression and shedding of blood of Muslims and Arabs.”

In any case, Egypt’s initiative has sharpened tensions between Palestinians and Israelis. Over the weekend, Israel froze Palestinian custom revenue to prevent it from being used to fund Hamas missile strikes, which have been escalating. Cairo has further deepened Israeli anxieties by lifting an electoral ban on the Muslim Brotherhood and reestablishing diplomatic ties with Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to address Congress later this month, but is reportedly recoiling from proposing new peace initiatives.

Egypt’s foreign minister also is urging the United States to back U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state. But the Obama administration is holding firm to its position that peace can only be achieved through direct negotiations between Israel and Palestinians.

Wingnut Watch: Responding to the Death of bin Laden

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Conservative reaction to the president’s announcement of the killing of Osama bin Laden has been relatively, perhaps even surprisingly, positive, given the standard view of Obama on the Right as an irresolute multilateralist afraid to use military force and always ready to apologize for American power.

Naturally, GOP congressional leaders and would-be presidents have been careful in their reactions. All gave credit to military and intelligence personnel with the event, but most (with the exception so far of Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann) also gave at least a small shout-out to the Obama administration, typically along with his predecessor.

Even some of the major right-wing opinionaters have been giving Obama grudging praise. RedState co-founder Ben Domenech made this rather strong statement at RealClearWorld:

Whatever you may think of Obama’s domestic policies or diplomatic decisions, his approach to national security has been largely wise and overwhelmingly vindicated thus far.

But there’s a very big undertow of conservative criticism of Obama for hypocrisy on grounds that the tactics that led to the discovery of Osama’s hiding-place were allegedly those that the president and other Democrats have deplored in the past. In fact, it’s being accepted at break-neck speed in the right-wing blogosphere that interrogations at Gitmo and/or the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced the critical intel. In other words, if Bush and Cheney can’t get the bulk of the credit for a big achievement that eluded them, the interrogation methods they defiantly championed were the real heroes.

There seems to be more than a little lefty-baiting going on in this line of conservative “reasoning,” in hopes of pouring gasoline on anti-war sentiment. Indeed, you can expect conservatives, initially at least, to leap to Obama’s defense if he visibly rejects the much-anticipated post-Osama advice to accelerate troop withdrawals in Afghanistan or announce an end to the Global War On Terror.

Before leaving this subject, I’d like to give a special acknowledgement to Michele Bachmann for her reaction to the death of Osama, which is a minor masterpiece in message discipline:

Tonight’s news does not bring back the lives of the thousands of innocent people who were killed that day by Osama bin Laden’s horrific plan, and it does not end the threat posed by terrorists, but it is my hope that this is the beginning of the end of Sharia-compliant terrorism.

“Sharia-compliant terrorism?” Sounds an awful lot like those “Sharia-compliant mortgages” Tim Pawlenty’s been accused of promoting as governor of Bachmann’s home state.

OBL’s death has temporarily interrupted the build-up of conservative wrath over the debt limit and GOP spending cut demands, but only temporarily. This week’s meetings in Washington involving representatives of the White House and congressional Republicans, and separately, the Senate’s Gang of Six deliberations, will produce a quickly intensifying backlash if there is any sign whatsoever of agreement. The latest “idea” that you’ll hear more about is that of a series of short-term (say, two-month) debt limit increases, providing multiple bites at the ideological apple, or, depending on which metaphor you prefer, a planned series of hostage crises. This is supposedly Grover Norquist’s pet proposal, and it could become very popular, even though some Tea Folk will point out this tactic didn’t work as brilliantly as was advertised on the FY 2011 appropriations front.

On the presidential campaign front, the news from Pakistan may have partially obscured Mitch Daniels’ decision to sign legislation making Indiana the first state to formally ban public funding for Planned Parenthood, and the third to impose a constitutionally-suspect ban on abortions more than 20 weeks after conception. This step is being widely interpreted as a signal that Daniels is back-tracking from his famous proposal for a “truce” on divisive cultural issues like abortion until such time as the country’s fiscal crisis is resolved, and/or that he has decided to run for president.

I dunno about that. Clearly, if Daniels had vetoed this legislation, the outcry from social conservatives would have made any presidential run in the immediate future a highly dubious proposition. But it’s not as though he actively promoted the bill before it landed on his desk, so further demonstrations of fealty to the anti-abortion cause will probably be necessary, and in any event, no one seems to know if he actually wants to run.

Pressure is also building on Mike Huckabee to make a move towards a candidacy a bit earlier than his own summer timetable. His friends in South Carolina recently had to bat down rumors he’d put out the word that he was giving the contest a pass.

Wingnut Watch: What Now for the Birthers?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

When I started doing this column back in February, I had this to say about the parameters of “wingnuttery” I considered sufficiently legitimate to address:

I’m not interested in conducting a carnival sideshow that cherry-picks and mocks radical conservatives who do not have any actual political power. I won’t follow the birthers and the white supremacists, won’t indulge in Nazi analogies, and won’t assume that every raving from the lips of Glenn Beck has been internalized as marching orders by Republican politicians. The degree of craziness in the conservative mainstream right now is large enough that exaggeration is unnecessary as well as unfair.

Guess I didn’t know how crazy “the crazy” could get, what with birtherism being a source of constant debate among all sorts of conservatives, and the signature issue of the guy currently leading most polls of Republicans to serve as their 2012 presidential candidate. But worse yet, today’s news indicates the evil genie of right-wing conspiracy theory will just move on to other toxic delusions about Barack Obama.

The White House got hold of and released the “long-form birth certificate” for the president that birthers have been claiming does not exist or has been destroyed or whisked away to one of those FEMA concentration camps or something.

Case closed, right? Well, the font of birtherism, the online publication WorldNetDaily, has “other questions” that remain about the circumstances of the president’s birth and upbringing. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is taking credit for forcing the White House to “resolve” the made-up “controversy.” Worse yet, he’s already moving on to other crazy conspiracy theories, notably the fable that Obama’s first book, Dreams From My Father, was actually written by ex-Weatherman William Ayers. This complete fabrication was emphatically endorsed by Trump on Sean Hannity’s show over a week ago. It’s a sign of the times that hardly anyone even noticed. And in an indication that this could be the next hallucinatory item to migrate from the fever swamps to “respectable” conservative opinion, Sarah Palin’s had this comment on Fox last night:

I think the media is loving this, because they want to make to make birthers, as they call people who are just curious about the president of the United States and his background and his associations and his consistency with what he says today versus what he said in both the memoirs that he wrote or Bill Ayers or whomever wrote.

I’m reasonably sure she was not just trying to be funny.

Conventional conservatives have a real obligation to stomp out this new/old forest fire of lies and lunacy before it spreads. The racial implications alone of the black-man-needs-white-radical-to-write-book meme are toxic enough to merit some active intervention instead of the sort of indulgent aren’t-they-cute attitude of Republicans towards birthers.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, the main development among conservative activists during the last week has been a steadily hardening position on a debt limit increase, with sentiment roughly divided between those claiming a delay in the measure would not alarm financial markets, and those arguing that the sky will fall if Congress does not enact Paul Ryan’s budget or something like it directly. Suffusing both points of view is the conviction that the administration and Senate Democrats will eventually cave and give them much of what they want if the play chicken on the debt limit. Underneath the surface is almost certainly the legitimate concern that 2012 voters will not give the GOP the decimation of Medicare and Medicaid that they are demanding in negotiations, though conservatives can now point to at least one poll (from Gallup) showing that if the Ryan and Obama positions on the budget are described in vague enough terms, opinion polarizes by party like it does on everything else.

The emerging party line on the ontological necessity of pushing Ryan-style “reforms” through come hell or high water was probably best expressed by John McCain’s top 2008 economic advisor, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, in National Review:

Entitlement reform is in the House budget because entitlement reforms have to be central to any plan. The large entitlement programs — Obamacare, Medicaid, and Medicare — are running red ink right now and are the major source of the growing debt that harms economic growth. The federal budget cannot come into balance and stay in balance unless the entitlement programs are reformed. Entitlement reform is an obligation for anyone who seeks to lead America to a more prosperous, responsible, and secure future.

All righty then. What’s left to negotiate? How much of a tax cut for “wealth producers” we need to wash down those benefit cuts?

P-Fix Celebrates Earth Day

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Friday, April 22 was Earth Day. We put together five great pieces to celebrate:

Like Tax Day, Earth Day Calls for a Full Accounting by Scott Thomasson

 

Thomasson writes: “If environmentalists, clean energy advocates, and climate hawks of different feathers want voters to judge the president and members of Congress for their record on these issues, like their failure to pass energy and climate legislation, then they should take advantage of the visibility of Earth Day to demand an accounting from our officials. If there is any time when you can get the attention of the media and voters for five minutes to remind them that there is a lot of work left to do, today is the day.”

The Wrong Tools for the Job by Nathan Richardson

Richardson writes: “A better way to take stock of environmental progress is to look at the tools we are using. And unfortunately doing that leaves me profoundly depressed. For almost every environmental problem, the best, most cost-effective solutions are rejected in favor of second-bests, hopeful handouts, or inaction.”

Why the U.S. is No Longer a Leader in Environmental Policy, by Jason Scorse

 

 

 

Scorse writes: “The bottom line is that people are much more willing to support environmental policies that come with large risks and disruptions to their way of life when other policies are in place to shield them from excessive risk and instability. Progressive environmental policies must rest on a foundation of broader investments in social safety nets. One of the primary reasons that the U.S. has fallen behind the world on environmental policy is because we have fallen behind on virtually all measures of economic security; the two are intimately linked.”

Wingnut Watch: Earth Day is Lenin’s Birthday, by Ed Kilgore

Kilgore writes: “I can’t pinpoint the moment of total devolution of conservative opinion on the environment, although Al Gore’s Nobel Prize might have been the tipping point. Before you knew it, Fox News personalities were regularly greeting every blizzard as definitive proof that global warming was a hoax. A tempest-in-a-teapot leak of emails from a British research institute became “Climategate,” exposing a vast global socialist conspiracy to suppress clear evidence against climate change. And old, fringe arguments against environmentalism generally as “pagan” or anti-Western had a very big renaissance.”

The Environment: What the Public Thinks, by Lee Drutman

Drutman writes: “It’s Earth Day, but as far as problems go, the environment now ranks last among 15 issues that the public thinks Congress and the President should deal with this year. Only 24 percent of Americans think the environment is an “extremely important” issue. On this score, the environment comes in behind “the situation in Iraq” (27 percent), “taxes” (27 percent), and “illegal immigration” (30 percent) and “gas and home heating prices” (31 percent).”

Wingnut Watch: Earth Day is Lenin’s Birthday

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s almost universally understood that the sudden withdrawal of nearly the entire Republican Party from any significant interest in environmental protection has had and will continue to have a calamitous effect on the ability of public institutions to do anything about such challenges as global climate change. The speed with which this has happened, though, can induce whiplash, not least among Republican pols who are being forced to repudiate their own records (notably John McCain in 2008, and in the current presidential cycle, Tim Pawlenty, soon to be followed, I am sure, by Jon Huntsman if he decides to run). My personal favorite example of this phenomenon occurred in 2010, when Rep. Mark Kirk, who had voted for the administration-supported climate change bill in the House, promised to vote against it if elected to the Senate.

In part this development can be understood as simply a subset of the final conquest of the GOP by a conservative movement that’s been struggling to regain control ever since it briefly held it in 1964. It’s also, as many commentators have noted, a byproduct of partisan and ideological polarization: if Barack Obama is for climate change legislation, then, by God, no respectable conservative can come within miles of supporting it!

But something else is going on, too. Even within the conservative movement, hostility to environmentalism has recently morphed from a prejudice to a core belief. Until quite recently, conservative pols and opinion-leaders gave grudging lip service to environmental protection. EPA was viewed as a bureaucratic nuisance, but not as a fundamentally illegitimate menace to free enterprise. Conservatives favored “balanced” energy development, including nuclear energy and expanded exploitation of domestic oil and coal, but didn’t, until 2008, become the “drill baby drill!” fossil-fuel-o-maniacs they appear to be today. They were climate-change “skeptics,” but not, by and large, climate-change deniers.

I can’t pinpoint the moment of total devolution of conservative opinion on the environment, although Al Gore’s Nobel Prize might have been the tipping point. Before you knew it, Fox News personalities were regularly greeting every blizzard as definitive proof that global warming was a hoax. A tempest-in-a-teapot leak of emails from a British research institute became “Climategate,” exposing a vast global socialist conspiracy to suppress clear evidence against climate change. And old, fringe arguments against environmentalism generally as “pagan” or anti-Western had a very big renaissance.

On this last note, it’s almost been forgotten that just a few years ago “creation care” was the hottest topic around for evangelical theologians. And this was an ecumenical trend, too, and not just within Protestantism: Pope Benedict XVI sponsored a Vatican Conference on Climate Change in 2007. Even outspoken critics of “creation care” activism (e.g., the Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land) were urging caution in the advocacy of climate change action, not abandonment of the environment altogether.

More recently, though, the idea of environmentalism representing fundamentally anti-Christian values is back with a vengeance. A Washington Times editorial yesterday mocked Earth Day as “The Hippie Holiday” celebrated by “humanity haters” who were defying God’s direct command to subdue and exploit nature. And here’s what was posted at the top of the influential Red State blog site this morning:

This year, the anniversary of our Lord’s crucifixion falls on the anniversary of Vladimir Lenin’s birthday, which is also Earth Day. Some will choose to worship creation today. We choose to worship our Creator.

Wow. I hadn’t read the Earth Day = Lenin’s Birthday meme since the original Earth Day, when a Republican candidate for governor of my home of Georgia used it and then had to backtrack in considerable embarrassment.

My, how we’ve grown.

Like Tax Day, Earth Day Calls for a Full Accounting

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The greatest irony of Earth Day is that it has become a yearly event that is almost ignored by environmentalists and celebrated mostly by politicians and businesses with green products or PR campaigns. The reason for this is probably best understood by florists, card shops, and restaurants on Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day: it is a day for symbolic gestures, taken most advantage of by those who aren’t doing enough the rest of the year but know they should be.

Boycotting the empty gestures is certainly understandable for those who “make every day Earth Day.” A quick visit to a half dozen or so websites of environmental groups this morning found almost no mention whatsoever of Earth Day, but there was a consistent focus on the one-year anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon gulf oil spill. That’s probably for the best, because if people who normally wouldn’t visit these sites are inspired to do so today, they are better off being met with substance than feel-good window dressing.

On the other hand, I’m not sure any of our politicians deserve to get a pass for running silent on environmental symbolism today. Just because it’s okay that Greenpeace chooses not to acknowledge Earth Day on its homepage today doesn’t make it okay for President Obama, Harry Reid, and John Boehner to do the same (they did, by the way—no mention of it whatsoever as of 9:30 am this morning, even on Obama’s now famous Facebook page).

Here’s why: for a lot of Americans, Earth Day may be the one day of the year when they decide to go hunting for information about what kind of progress we have made as a nation on environmental and energy issues, and elected officials ought to be accountable at exactly that moment for their positions on those issues. The White House gets this concept for taxes: Tax Day was this past Monday, and whitehouse.gov still has the new “taxpayer receipt” feature splashed across its main page so people can see where their money went while the question is fresh in their mind. Voters deserve a similar accounting for the environment on the day when they are most likely to be looking for it.

I understand the cynicism about what Earth Day has become, but the problem with that cynicism is one that has all-too-often plagued the environmental movement: it allows condescending moralism to undermine efforts for political accountability. If environmentalists, clean energy advocates, and climate hawks of different feathers want voters to judge the president and members of Congress for their record on these issues, like their failure to pass energy and climate legislation, then they should take advantage of the visibility of Earth Day to demand an accounting from our officials. If there is any time when you can get the attention of the media and voters for five minutes to remind them that there is a lot of work left to do, today is the day.

The Wrong Tools for the Job

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Whatever you read today, you’ll find writers marking Earth Day by taking stock of environmental progress. Some will celebrate how far we have come in the last 41 years: no burning rivers, bald eagles are back, etc. Others will stress how far we have to go, citing biodiversity loss, water crises, and above all climate change. (And if your reading habits are sufficiently diverse, others will argue we’ve gone too far, and that environmental rules are hurting our economy). All of these (yes, even sometimes the third) are partly right, but arguing over which frame is “right,” if any can be, is not that illuminating.

A better way to take stock of environmental progress is to look at the tools we are using. And unfortunately doing that leaves me profoundly depressed. For almost every environmental problem, the best, most cost-effective solutions are rejected in favor of second-bests, hopeful handouts, or inaction. To give just a few examples:

Transportation: With vehicle emissions dirtying city air and contributing to climate change, inadequate investment in road infrastructure, and a strategically costly dependence on foreign oil, the US could increase gas taxes, which are lower than those in almost every other developed economy. Instead, we use some policies that give no incentive to reduce driving while at the same time restricting consumers’ choice of cars (CAFE standards) and others that cost billions while driving up global food prices (ethanol subsidies).

Smog and Acid Rain: For a beautiful moment, from 1990 through 2010, we did it right: we had a nationwide cap-and-trade program for sulfur dioxide emissions that caused smog and acid rain. The program resulted in huge health benefits at far less cost than even EPA estimated. But that program is or will soon be dead. New EPA rules are set to end interstate trading for most of the country and will impose other restrictions that mean allowances now have almost no value. EPA doesn’t deserve all the blame—courts rejection of flexible tools and Congress’ failure to act are the true sources of this problem. But it’s just crazy to kill the best environmental program this country has ever had.

Climate: Despite the Senate’s failure to even consider a single climate bill last year, we do (to the surprise of some) have an American climate policy. States and EPA are leading the way, but even if they are both bold and smart, the patchwork of carbon markets, emissions standards, and energy subsidies that emerges will surely be less efficient overall. Emissions reductions will be less, and those we do get will cost more. How is that a good deal?

I could go on. Everywhere you look, even when we deal with environmental problems, we consistently choose ways to deal with them that are costly, ineffective, or even counterproductive. It would be one thing if the best ways to solve these problems—cap-and-trade, taxing externalities—were untested ideas. But of course they are not. They are well understood, and as close to dogma as is possible among economists. Most damning of all, we used to understand this, across the political spectrum. As the sulfur dioxide story illustrates, even if we are making some environmental progress we are getting worse as a country at dealing with these issues effectively.

There is a political story here, of course. There was a time when many on the left rejected efficiency as a goal of environmental policy. The right pushed for a role for markets, and eventually a grand compromise emerged in the 1990s. Efficiency was understood to be a universally valuable goal: more effective policies meant lower costs or more environmental benefits at the same cost. Politics was about making this tradeoff, as it should be.

But somehow cap-and-trade became cap-and-tax, and a large section of the right seems opposed to any environmental policy, whether efficient or not. They’ve moved the goalposts. This about-face is particularly ironic since it leaves government handouts like nuclear subsidies and inflexible restrictions like renewable portfolio standards as the only politically plausible energy policies. How is that pro-market or anti-big government? (The left is not without some blame too: to see that, just look at how fringe groups have recently derailed California’s cap-and-trade program).

But there’s more to this story than just party politics. Efficient environmental policy simply has not caught on with the American public. Sticker shock (like gas taxes) trumps long-term efficiency every time. Hiding costs through subsidies (like ethanol or nuclear) is always more popular than showing them up front by pricing externalities. Defending or securing benefits to the few is always easier than minimizing costs to the many. With environmental problems, costs are often distant in time or diffuse, or benefits are small but widespread. This exacerbates all these problems—that’s what makes them hard.

To some extent our failure to make good policy is a failure of leadership: hiding costs is classic politics, and tearing down those who ask us to make hard choices is easy. We see this in almost all issues, not just environmental policy. But leaders can’t carry all the blame, not least because we choose them.

So is there anything to be hopeful about on Earth Day? If so, it’s hard to find. The trend is in the wrong direction—it is as if we are forgetting everything we’ve learned about dealing with environmental problems. But eventually the biggest such problems—among them water, energy, and climate—will become too large to ignore (arguably, they are already there). When they do, efficient policies for dealing with them will be available. When we are ready, we can do this.

 

The Environment: What the Public Thinks

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s Earth Day, but as far as problems go, the environment now ranks last among 15 issues that the public thinks Congress and the President should deal with this year. Only 24 percent of Americans think the environment is an “extremely important” issue. On this score, the environment comes in behind “the situation in Iraq” (27 percent), “taxes” (27 percent), and “illegal immigration” (30 percent) and “gas and home heating prices” (31 percent).

Moreover, when it comes to the trade-off between the economy and the environment, meanwhile, the economy now wins hands down: 54 percent to 36 percent. This is actually a relatively new development. Prior to 2008, the public had never prioritized the economy over the environment. As recently as 2007, the public supported giving the environment priority over the economy 55 percent to 37 percent, and throughout the 1980s and 1990s public opinion was consistently 65-to-25 in favor of environment over the economy, with slight dips in environmental friendliness during recessions.

Not surprisingly, the changes have been most pronounced among Republicans and conservatives. In 2000, conservatives prioritized the environment over the economy 62-to-33 percent; Now they prioritize the economy 70-to-22 percent – a remarkable 38 point shift. Similarly, Republicans overall went from 60-to-34 percent environment first to 55-to-35 economy first.

But even liberals have become less environment first. In 2000, they supported the environment over the economy 74 percent to 22 percent; now it’s 55 percent to 35 percent economy over environment. Same with Democrats overall: In 2000, they favored the environment 69 percent to 27 percent; now it’s just barely: 46 percent to 42 percent.

Certainly, a sluggish economy has something to do with things. When unemployment flirts with double-digits and the economy is in recession, it’s much easier to see the top priority as creating jobs. Moreover, the visible environment is in pretty decent shape these days. The skies and rivers are not brown, thanks to environmental regulations passed in the 1970s. Whatever environmental disasters might exist lurk in the hypotheticals of global warming.

As for the environmental problems that people care about, drinking water comes out first (51 percent care a great deal about it), followed closely by soil (48 percent), and rivers, lakes and reservoirs (46 percent).

But even on the these issues, the public is a lot less worried. In 1989, 72 percent of Americans cared a great deal about the pollution of rivers lakes and reservoirs, as opposed to 46 percent today. Similarly, in 1989, 63 percent cared a great deal about air pollution; today it’s 36 percent. This is a success story, because public opinion reflects the fact that these issues just aren’t the big deal they used to be.

What’s troubling, however, is the extent to which public opinion is becoming less concerned about global warming. Only one quarter of respondents care a great deal about global warming, ranking it last among eight environmental issues. That’s down from 41 percent as recently as 2007.

Similarly, as recently as July 2006, 79 percent of respondents thought that there was solid evidence that the earth is warming, and 50 percent believed it was because of human activity. Now only 59 percent believe the earth is warming, and just 32 percent think it’s because of human activity.

What’s emerged is a partisan divide on the issue. Whereas Democrats have been largely consistent in believing the earth is warming, Republicans have increasingly become convinced that global warming is not a problem.

All of this, however, is too bad for Obama, because environmental stewardship is one of the issues the President polls best on: 55 percent of Americans think he is doing a good job “protecting the nation’s environment” as compared to 33 percent who think he is doing a poor job.

The Supreme Court Hears AEP v. Connecticut

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Would that allow you to sue all those farmers . . . cow by cow, or at least farm by farm? – Justice Scalia

You’re going to put a $20 a ton tax on carbon, and lo and behold, you will discover that nuisance will be abated. And we bring in 15 economists. – Justice Breyer

In oral arguments for AEP v. Connecticut today the Supreme Court today seemed skeptical of Connecticut and other states’ argument that they should be allowed to pursue nuisance suits against major power companies for their GHG emissions. The transcript is available, and SCOTUSblog has a good overview of the arguments. Though making predictions based on oral arguments is dangerous, I will be very surprised if the court allows this case to proceed. But it is much less clear which of the available reasons for halting the case the court will choose. That decision will have implications that extend well beyond the legal details, and choosing one of the reasons—displacement—could even be beneficial for climate policy.

To recap for those of you that haven’t been following the case, the court has four separate plausible justifications for dismissing it. Very briefly but (hopefully) in plain English, the court could rule that the states can’t sue because:

a) any injury from climate change can’t be traced to the power companies, or courts can’t craft a remedy (Article III standing),

b) the harms of climate change are too generalized and better addressed by Congress (prudential standing),

c) climate change is a “political question” that courts can’t decide; or

d) the Clean Air Act and EPA “displace” federal common law suits like this one.

With four separate grounds available, all of them arguably applicable, the states were always on shaky ground. In fact, the only way I can see the court allowing the case to proceed is if the justices cannot agree on which rationale to choose. If there is no majority, the lower court decision (which favored the states) would stand. This is slightly more likely than normal since Justice Sotomayor has recused herself, making a 4-4 split possible. But this outcome is unlikely. The court will probably choose one (or more) of the rationales and dismiss the case.

The justices spent some time at arguments on each of the four rationales. The political question doctrine was discussed the least, but I can’t rule out any of the four. But it is interesting that two of the justices most likely to rule in the states’ favor—Justice Kagan and Justice Ginsburg—focused on the displacement issue. Each seemed to feel EPA moves to regulate GHGs were significant, and in tension with a nuisance suit: Ginsburg suggested that the suit would require courts to become a “super EPA” without the expertise for that role. If these justices favor dismissing on displacement grounds, that may be the compromise that emerges from the Court.

It helps that an opinion citing displacement almost writes itself—this case was filed, decided, and appealed at a time when EPA never looked like regulating GHGs. A lot has happened since then: Massachusetts v. EPA, the 2009 GHG endangerment finding, new vehicle emissions rules, and the late-2010 settlement agreement under which EPA committed to regulating emissions from exactly those facilities the states are pursuing: the electric power sector.

The states point out that these regulations aren’t in place yet, and though I don’t think that helps them avoid legal displacement, it illustrates why a court decision based on displacement would be so important. If you’ve been following Congress this year, you know EPA authority over GHGs is under threat. It narrowly survived the 2011 budget process, and is likely to be targeted again. But if this authority is all that stands between emitters and federal nuisance suits, it becomes much harder to get rid of. The power companies already acknowledge in their brief that EPA does have the authority to regulate GHGs from their plants (which should, by the way, finally end attempts to rhetorically relitigate Massachusetts v. EPA). If the Supreme Court rules that Congress displaced suits like Connecticut when it gave broad authority to the EPA under the Clean Air Act, legislators are much less likely to take that power away, at least not without putting something new in its place.

So while a loss for the states on displacement grounds might seem like an anti-environmental result, it would be just as accurate to view it as pro-EPA. Dismissal of the case on standing or political question grounds does not have this effect. This also illustrates why displacement is the narrowest grounds for dismissal—if the EPA fails to act or is disarmed by Congress, the Court can revisit the issue, and only then would it need to draw sweeping conclusions about the scope of broad legal doctrines.

The EPA, armed only with its current powers, is not the ideal architect for climate policy—but it is a far better venue than the courts, for both practical and philosophical reasons. The justices today seemed acutely aware of these limitations. Assuming my prediction is correct and this case is dismissed, I agree with others who argue that is the right result regardless of our views on climate policy. But it’s possible that in dismissing the case the Court will strengthen the EPA. If so, that’s good news for the climate too.